


from a bandit to a baby

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Nonbinary Harry Styles, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22372999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Tell me something,” Louis murmurs.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 52
Kudos: 248





	from a bandit to a baby

**Author's Note:**

> title is from disgusting by miranda cosgrove, the greatest song of this generation. please take it very seriously.
> 
> originally this was supposed to be my first foray into mpreg—something i never thought i'd touch with a ten foot pole—but this is a birthday gift for my best friend, half the reason why i keep writing, and i wanted to make sure i posted it today.
> 
> so it's just some fluff from some unidentifiable au that i will hopefully add to later, maybe, instead of being a reimaginative masterpiece of the world without a sex binary, and a world in which all of harry's pregnant dreams come true. also—harry being nb is not especially prominent. he just is. wanted to make that clear.
> 
> hope u enjoy, not my problem if u don't.
> 
> deen, happy fucking birthday. i love u :^)

If time moved any slower it’d stand still, Louis thinks, and the universe would be only this, and his: a fingertip, following the small circle of Harry’s navel, round and round, until Harry tenses and giggles, wriggling beneath him, but never moving away. Seems the light is dying outside—evening sky brilliant like the soft inner flesh of an overripe mango—and Harry is cast in gold. Louis would turn the bedside lamp on if it didn’t mean he’d have to move, and they’ve been high for so long that doing even that feels like it’d be a monumental chore. Harry’s closer to it, anyway, but if his whining is anything to go by he probably couldn’t lift a limb even if he wanted to. 

“Lou,” Harry whispers, smoky. “Stop, I’m ticklish.”

“You are?”

“_Lou_.” His voice is a slow drip, although indignant now. He sounds so offended, as if Louis, who has spent months mapping the intricate constellation of Harry’s innermost self—ticklishness, petulance, and all—could ever forget. “You know I am!”

Arching a brow, Louis sticks a finger into his ribs just to make him squeal, and cackles when he does. “Lou,” Harry groans again. Sometimes Louis wonders if Harry says his name just for the sake of tasting it. No one else really calls him that. No one else would really think to. Louis was never a _Lou_ kind of guy, before Harry, but he supposes he wasn’t a lot of things.

“It’s all right,” Louis says, turning his face into Harry’s bare hip and kissing it open-mouthed. “You can get me back later, when you feel up to it.”

“I have your explicit permission?” Harry asks. Louis isn’t looking at him, too occupied by tasting his skin, but he can practically hear the tilt of his smile.

“Sure.” 

He’ll probably regret it, but right now he’s measuring _later_ in light-years, and hopefully Harry will have forgotten this conversation when he’s sober. Louis isn’t nearly as gracious as Harry is when he’s tickled. Harry laughs, quiet and throaty, as Louis’s tongue finds his happy trail, follows it up to his belly button, and dips in. 

“Tell me something,” Louis murmurs.

“Like what?” Harry asks. He may not be able to turn the light on, but he somehow finds it in himself to reach down and slide his fingers through Louis’s hair, knotting a lock of it around his knuckles. 

“Whatever’s on your mind, angel.” He nuzzles Harry gently, closes his eyes, takes a measured breath, and smiles when Harry does, too, matching him instinctively.

“Hm,” Harry says. “I love you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. That’s the only thing that’s ever on my mind.” He wriggles again, demanding; when Louis peers up Harry has his head tipped back against the pillows. It’s possible he doesn’t even know he’s searching for Louis’s touch, but Louis gives it to him anyway, thumbs over the soft swell of his waist, palming up to his ribcage.

“Cute,” Louis snorts, which makes Harry laugh. “What else?”

He hears Harry draw in a breath, but in his haze Louis can’t quite decide whether it’s a response to his curious fingers or if there’s something he needs to steel himself to say. Gentle, encouraging—just in case it’s the latter—Louis nudges the tip of his nose into Harry’s skin.

“You’re gonna think I’m stupid,” Harry sighs. He’s brushing his fingertips across Louis’s nape now, the barest whisper of a touch.

“I won’t,” Louis promises, and although it takes monumental strength, he lifts away from Harry’s belly and hauls himself up so they’re face-to-face, sharing a pillow since all the others have been knocked off the bed somehow. Despite whatever’s weighing on him suddenly, a corner of Harry’s mouth curls. Louis aches, somehow. Probably because Harry doesn’t often allow himself to be reassured—too easily convinced by everything stewing in his own head and too guarded to trust anyone else’s alternatives—but lets Louis soften his edges without hesitation. “I never do, I love you.”

“Is this…” Harry’s bloodshot eyes, mostly-pupil, flicker nervously, a troubled line carving between his brows. Louis thinks of licking Harry’s tongue when it worries across his bottom lip before he remembers they’re being serious now and shakes the urge away.

“Is it…”

Harry laughs breathlessly at his prodding. He shakes his head, then cups Louis’s face. “I feel bad—I don’t want you to take me the wrong way and I… I also don’t want the answer to be something I don’t want to hear.”

“You’re scaring me,” Louis says. “Come on, I can’t give you an answer at all if you don’t tell me.”

There’s a heartbeat’s silence. Harry swallows audibly. 

“Is this serious?” Harry asks, which is—not what Louis thought he’d say in the slightest. A strangled laugh bursts out of him before he can bite it back, but Harry’s expression doesn’t shift, still unsmiling and more than a little strained.

“This… as in, us?” Bewildered, trying not to bristle, Louis pulls back, just so he can look at Harry properly without going cross-eyed. “Harry, I—”

“I know you love me,” Harry interrupts hurriedly. “I know you do. I’m sorry. I—I’m sorry, I wasn’t questioning you or—” His frown deepens, and his fingers curl against Louis’s cheek. “What I meant was, we haven’t even been together that long, and you’re the only relationship I’ve ever really had, but I keep thinking I always want to have this. I don’t know if it’s naïve or—or impossible to think that I actually got lucky enough to find my, like, soulmate on the first try. I don’t want it to be. I really, really, really want it to be you.”

Louis needs to kiss him. He fists a hand in Harry’s hair like he does when they get rough but captures his mouth warm and sweet, opens his thighs for Harry to nudge his knee in between, sucks Harry’s tongue into his mouth to make him whimper, ragged, one of those sounds he makes without meaning to—which makes it one of Louis’s favorites to hear.

“Thanks for telling me,” Louis pants when Harry’s smiling too wide to kiss him back. “I didn’t mean to get defensive, I just—I don’t even worry about that stuff anymore, you know what I mean? When I think of the future, there's no question whether you’re there or not. You’re forever stuck in my head.” 

Harry’s cheeks are pink; it’s evident even in the dismal blue-grey of the bedroom. He hadn’t noticed it was dusk until it cast Harry in shadow, his lashes dark and soft, his eyes darker and softer; and he supposes he hadn’t noticed when he began to think of the world only in terms of how it touched Harry, either—how the sun only mattered when it burnished Harry’s skin gold, and the darkness is only heavy so long as it obscures the exact angle of Harry’s jaw, or the faint, singular freckle on the bridge of his nose. 

Forever stuck in his head sounds about right. 

Louis had kissed him well enough to dissolve the furrow in his brow. He dips close enough to do it again, shorter this time, moving his fingers out of Harry’s hair and along the arch of his spine instead, stopping right against his tailbone. 

“Lou,” Harry says, pushing his thumb against the grain of Louis’s beard, and Louis hums in question. “Do you wanna get married?”

“Right now?” Louis teases, earning himself an unattractive snort.

“We can do it right now if you want,” Harry giggles. “But I meant it a little more generally.” His flush has deepened, as if the idea of marriage alone is enough to get under his skin.

“Maybe not right now. Tomorrow?” Louis wraps his fingers around Harry’s wrist, peels his hand off of his cheek, and brings it to his mouth to kiss. Against Harry’s knuckles, he continues, “But generally, yeah, one day.”

“To me?”

Louis squints and hums, mockingly considering, and Harry whines, “Hey!” before sticking a finger up his nose in protest, effectively killing any semblance of seriousness because he’s left Louis with absolutely no choice but to wrestle him back against the bed and kiss him: the tip of his nose, between his brows, his chin, his bitten-red bottom lip, the pale column of his throat. Once he’s done Harry’s wheezing with laughter, and Louis settles between his legs, pulling Harry’s thigh around his hip.

“Baby,” Louis says, kissing his dimpled cheek. “I’m absolutely getting married to you, and you’ll be my wife”—Harry beams—“and we’ll have—how many kids?”

“Four?” Harry says, squeezing his legs around Louis’s waist. The insides of his thighs are so soft—once he dredges up the ability to move again Louis would like to kiss them, too. “Does that sound reasonable?”

“You’re the one who has to pop ‘em out,” Louis says.

“Yeah, but I’ll be a nightmare when I’m pregnant,” Harry says. “And that’s on you.”

Well, Harry’s a bit of a nightmare _not_ pregnant—in an endearing way. Kind of. Louis doesn’t say this, and instead shrugs, lowering all his weight against his body. Chest-to-chest, belly-to-belly. He brushes a fingertip over the tender place just under Harry’s ear, where there’s a fading mark; Louis can never help himself. He grins.

“On second thought, four does sound reasonable.”


End file.
